VEG

by Zachery Nims

  Chapter 25: The War

  Source: Journal

  Name: Mark Boggs

  The park lay eerily silent, building up unsettling and unshakeable fears. Those thoughts that started innocent but turned evil were now ripping through the minds of the brave. The VEGERS walked as one unit, marching in perfect formation. We had made it a good two miles with little incident. Then without warning the landscape gave way to chaos.

  Hundreds of Zerglings came screaming out of the woods from the north, rabid with adrenaline. The chatter of their razor sharp teeth conducting a symphony of panic as they bounded toward the head of the army with cheetah like speeds. In Starcraft the Zerglings were the smallest creatures in the game. Seeing them in VEG was horrifying. They were the size of buffalo and their stampede made everyone’s leg sensors tremble with the quaking of the earth.

  Silvia slammed her staff into the ground, gripping one of the enormous sapphires on top. It started glowing bright blue and a wall of ice encircled the group. The barrier was forty feet high and fifteen feet thick. “Ranged classes, rain down DPS,” Silvia commanded. The group was already in the process, casting meteor strikes and acid rain onto the atrocities as they approached.

  The Zerglings slammed into the wall with such force that the first twenty knocked themselves unconscious, sending a rippling crack through its core. The rest encircled the ice leaping at it, desperately trying to break through to feed upon flesh. One of the Zerglings barked out strange noises as it studied the barrier. They began to dig their razor like claws into the ice, climbing it with ease. They were dying but not quick enough.

  A Shadow Elf cast a mirror image of himself on the other side of the wall that took on half of his capabilities, trying to draw a chunk of them off. He attacked at their backsides distracting a pack from attempting the climb.

  The pack grew in size, chasing the Shadow Elf off to the west. This made the Zerglings coming over the wall easier to handle. Hunters stepped up into positions casting net snares, entangling the beasts that reached the crest. It sent them colliding into the monsters below, twisting limbs to breaking point, crippling a majority of them.

  Fire mages burned portal sized windows through the ice so that line of sight attacks were possible and within a few minutes we had killed off the entirety of the horde. Seeing how long it took to kill them was a little intimidating for most but we were still fresh with confidence from the win.

  Two more waves of Zerglings attacked on the way to the fortress but only two users perished in the fight. The hives of Hydralisks hadn’t appeared in the predicted hostile zones. It had Silvia visibly nervous but she was trying to appear strong for the rest of the users by barking orders. We were approaching the administrator’s stronghold and the group slowed in awe of its magnitude.

  The fortress was a labyrinth of jagged steel. Guard towers jutted up in every direction with spikes perched precariously about. Two ominous double set doors lurked from its center depicting the gates of hell, with damned souls reaching up to the heavens in desperation, hoping for salvation. A wooden crate lay twenty feet in front of the entrance, tied with a red ribbon, like a present waiting to be opened.

  A sole mage appeared in one of the central guard towers holding his wooden staff above his head. He chanted a foul sounding language and the crate’s ribbon began to dance around, untying itself. The top of the crate shot into the air and the four walls dropped revealing a baby carriage.

  Nothing was visible, but infant squeals rang out from within. They filled the air, turning exponentially darker with each passing second. Then they suddenly stopped. A soft chubby arm reached out gripping the side of the carriage struggling to pull the rest of its body upright. A baby’s face popped up, appearing normal at first. Then you saw it; there were no eyes, just black hole like empty sockets. It made my skin crawl the way it looked out upon us, as if it could see into our souls.

  The baby lunged from the carriage with super human strength landing in a crouched position, head starring at us cocked to an awkward angle like a zombie. Its chest sucked in and then shot back outwards releasing a lion like roar from deep within.

  The baby’s body began to shake like it was having a seizure but still, it kept its soulless sockets locked upon us. The skin on the baby’s back began rising as the convulsing quickened to a shudder. It expanded rapidly until it exploded, shooting a green puss in every direction, and a horned demon launched out into the air. Its body was shielded in black and red scales, but the beast’s stomach was unusual. The belly was made with a transparent skin, resembling glass, so that you could see through to the scales upon its back. No organs were visible, just liquid.

  The demon grew a hundred feet within seconds, letting out screeching noises with the shock of its growing pains. The baby’s shakes subsided and then it stood upright with its hands extended in the air moving its fingers as if it wanted to be held. The demon’s massive head lunged forward, swallowing the baby whole.

  Inside the demon’s transparent stomach, the baby appeared swimming around until it positioned itself to look back out upon the army of VEGERS. It was suspended, floating in the fluid. The baby lifted its right arm and the demon mimicked the move. It looked as though the baby was the puppet master getting used to the new controls of its toy.

  The demon approached, being operated by the abomination within. It lunged at the solid formation of VEGERS grabbing the first user it saw, ripping off his head with his razor sharp teeth. Blood spewed out from the void. It squeezed his body to increase the flow, bathing itself in the glory of the kill. “Run,” Silvia screamed. They took off at a sprint but not before the demon slammed his hand down upon two more users, crushing them to death. Hunters tried to cast snares to slow it down but luckily it stopped at the edge of the tree line.

  We arrived at the second clearing and formed back into ranks. Silvia called out commands but in mid-sentence a user screamed from the rear of the group. Everyone turned, only to see a hive of Hydralisks striking from the tree line.

  There were too many to count and they were slashing and spitting venom with deadly precision. The venom blinded sight and eroded armor. Silvia froze the front line of aggressors in place with her staff but it wouldn’t hold for long. “Hunters snare their mouths to stop the venom attack. Healers cast protective bubbles for the melee, and warriors get to the rear to take the damage,” Silvia called out.

  The users worked together smoothly to Silvia’s surprise. Nature Mages awoke the trees behind them, and they were now slamming down upon the horde of Hydralisks stunning them almost to death. Before long they had the situation under control but they had still lost some of their healers before they could counter the surprise attack. Everyone’s armor had been eroded but it was only their secondary armor used to deceive the system administrators into thinking they were weaker.

  The trees began to part from the north being pushed aside with ease by the demon and one other large summon that couldn’t be made out yet. Good they only sent two, Silvia thought. “I need six powerful summons now,” Silvia said.

  A spirit mage dressed in blue robes and a white skintight suit pressed a button on her rod changing it into a sacrificial dagger. Raising the blade above her head, she began to speak Spanish in a demonic manner, rocking her body back and forth. She was speaking of death and the day the dead would rise and overtake the earth. Her hands slammed the dagger into her own belly pulling it across horizontally to gut herself. Blood flowed from the opening like a waterfall, cascading over the torn flesh.

  The Spirit Mage’s eyes turned bright red burning like embers, her chanting turned into a stream of words that were incomprehensible. The pool of her life bulged and when the Spirit Mage’s words turned into a scream, the blood blossomed outwards birthing a fifty-foot blood genie. Its body comprised only of thick red blood. It swirled around the base of his body like a hurricane.

  The
blood genie engulfed the Spirit Mage and they became one. Invoking yourself into a summon was a risky move because when your summon died you perished with it. Although, it was the only way to have a truly powerful summon.

  Next an Ice Mage froze the ground in front of himself, placing a bright blue stone in the center. It sparkled like the universe. Shooting stars, galaxies, and cosmos radiated from within. A Fire Mage lit the ball on fire, which sent the universe into chaos. The Ice Mage quickly froze it in a cocoon of ice.

  At its core, something white was twirling inside. An animal was taking form and growing exponentially. A polar bear broke free of its frozen barrier sending shards of crystal ice flying into the air. It grew ten times the size of an elephant. When standing upright, it was as tall as the administrators demon summon. He roared, bearing his pearly white teeth, batting at the skies with his massive paws.

  Two hunters, who had been conversing early in the game, both launched Mega Mole summons. They placed a peanut shaped rock on the ground and had a Dwarf smash them with a warhammer. The earth split and shook, until two moles came digging upwards revealing only the top halves of their gargantuan bodies. It was a great idea to cast Mega Moles, because they could hold summons in place rooting them to the ground while attacking.

  Finally a Fire Mage whispered some words to his wooden staff to ignite it with flames. Fire spread from the staff, engulfing his entire body, until he was glowing bright red. Pointing his staff at the sky, every bit of the inferno launched from him shooting straight into the overcast sky. A halo of fire spread through the clouds from the beam, opening a portal in which a fire breathing red dragon came soaring through.

  The dragon swooped down and landed next to the Fire Mage nuzzling his head while smoke poured through his nostrils, drenching him in it. The Mage rubbed his nose and touched his wand to his forehead. In an instant the dragon was covered in steel armor from head to toe with two large proton cannons strapped to his sides. Hunters were carefully lacing the tree line with giant traps and Dwarves were busy setting bombs underground to greet the administrator’s summons. Then we waited.

  The initial attack was chaos. Silvia had figured that only two summons would approach from the front but another two surprised us from the rear. The traps that were laid crippled the first summon to come bursting through the trees. What was once an axe wielding Minotaur was now a legless desperate animal wailing for mercy. He received that mercy from the polar bear summon, that swallowed his head whole, spitting out his horns with a fierce look of disgust.

  It was a short-lived victory that ended with the two summons attacking from the rear. The red dragon was yanked out of the sky by a zombie werewolf that lunged at it from a treetop and one of the Mega Moles was plucked from the ground like a vegetable by the power of the demon summon. It tossed the mole about like a rag doll. He threw it to a Titan that ripped it limb by limb juggling its body parts as a jester would.

  The polar bear was defending desperately against the demon. The werewolf and the Titan had set upon the blood genie and the mole. When the Titan opened his mouth to bite off the second mole’s head the blood Genie morphed into liquid and leapt into his throat. The titan began to glow red, shaking and convulsing. Rocks shed from his exterior until the red overtook him. All of the sudden the Titan stood up straight as if it was a new entity. The blood Genie had taken control.

  The Titan rounded on his heels and grabbed the werewolf by the throat. In one quick motion he ripped out its esophagus and watched him bleed out as he roared with laughter. The demon was still aggressing and had now met up with the Titan. The other summons were hardly a match. “Split,” Silvia screamed over the panic filled battlefield. They did so but not before losing another twenty-two users.

  The plans had to adapt because of the losses in the first wave. She texted new orders to the west army, but kept the original plan for the group now fleeing to the east. The administrator’s summons engaged the western army to Silvia’s relief, but the texts pouring in on their visors told of an awful ambush that awaited them at the second rendezvous point.

  The western army was destroyed and it hadn’t even been two hours into the war. Silvia stopped in a panic holding her chest as she collapsed. She began rubbing it, gasping for air. Her hand stopped in place with a sudden realization and then she was back on her feet sprinting in an unknown direction. Kenshin, Evo, Drogo, and I were on her six, our legs coursing with exhaustion to try and keep her pace. The route was long and obscure to evade detection but the end point was that of question.

  We stood in front of the Charles Sanders statue, erected in the northern part of Central Park. It was a clearing that left us exposed. We stood one hundred yards from the eastern wall of the administrator’s fortress. They were already screaming commands at each other from the watchtowers. “Silvia we can’t hold this position. What are we doing here?” Kenshin asked. “I need 5 minutes,” Silvia said.

  Hordes of enemy users were pouring in around us. “What in the fuck is she doing, this is suicide.” Drogo said as he sprinted toward the raiding horde. Silvia worked in a methodical and efficient fashion. She pressed the front of Charles Sanders belt buckle, while stepping on his right foot, then reached up and pulled his eyelids closed.

  The key from around Charles’s neck popped out of the statue and into her hand. She unzipped her black leather jacket, revealing a golden necklace with a key at the end. With a quick yank it came free, breaking the golden chain that held it. With a couple of movements she had locked the keys together. “We don’t have much time,” Kenshin yelled, glimpsing back.

  “One more minute,” Silvia yelled, as she placed the key inside the globe shaped chest. It made a hissing noise and then physically opened. An augmented ball of energy came rising out of its center, suspended in midair. She grabbed the ball and placed it on the ground in front of us speaking words in Latin that I couldn’t make out. The ground began to rumble, the rumble turned to quake, and the quake split the earth in four directions opening to its core.

  The army of enemy users all came to a standstill watching in awe. Even Kenshin had stopped fighting the entirety of administrators and turned facing toward the point that Silvia was crouched over. An eruption of lava came rocketing upwards from the crumbling earth, sending flaming fireballs in every direction. One of the fireballs landed on a VEG administrator, mesmerized with wonder of the summoning spectacle. It killed him instantly.

  His death sent the administrators into a panic. They began running in every direction to evade the eruption’s fury. When the smoke cleared and only ash rained down upon Central Park, a long shrieking primal scream echoed from below, and a booming voice called out “ROSHAN AWAKES,” that reached every corner of the park.

  It had been said that Charles Sanders favorite video game was called Defense of the Ancients or DotA for short. It was a multiplayer battle arena mod made from the strategy game Warcraft III, an older type of League of Legends game. Roshan was a boss that players could join together to kill, giving their team an advantage of levels, gold, one free life, and a piece of cheese that replenished mana and health.

  From the depths of the quake’s core rose an enormous rock hand, digging its fingers into the edge of the ground. Roshan, in full armor, pulled himself upwards as if born from the depths of hell, lava pouring off his plate mail.

  When visible, Roshan was mesmerizing to look at, a monstrosity whose body was comprised of boulder like stones, now towering over everything in the park. He stood the size of the Empire State Building, the tanks and summons that plagued the field were that of ants in comparison. She directed it upon the enemy horde.

  She wiped out half of their castle with a single swing of his arm. The summon was just a myth that had been talked about on game forums and blogs. No one believed in its existence.

  The entire field stopped in motion, frozen as a computer would during an
MMO when the server was overloaded. Silvia appeared to be in her element, crushing and bashing atom sized enemy users. She approached the last standing barricade of the castle with the remaining administrators inside. They didn’t try and run or hide. A sole unarmed dead Warrior walked toward her. Others began to follow. Even dead users began walking behind the Warrior, disobeying the PvP rules. The Warrior came to a stop in front of Silvia. The entire army had filed in behind him. Administrators and allies alike were standing at attention.

  The Warrior did a slight bow and then knelt down on one knee. He placed his right hand over his chest and lowered his head. In unison the rest of the users did the same. There was silence across the entire park. Hundreds of users were bent over doing what appeared to be the accolade ceremony. Tears began to run down Silvia’s cheeks. She approached the Warrior and touched the back of his head. I stood motionless not knowing what was happening or what everyone understood. Whether enemy or ally they looked as though they were swearing loyalty, as if they knew some silent secret that I didn’t.

  My visor filled up with a large “VICTORY” in double bold font. The other team had forfeited, and over eighty percent had been banned for a month. It was over, and the field was engulfed in cheers. Silvia dismissed Roshan and grabbed Evo and I’s hands saying, “it’s time.”